Quite Irregular
by Erisah Mae
Summary: In which Eggsy is one of Sherlock's Baker Street Irregulars.
1. Chapter 1

Part 1:

Sherlock as a general rule was not especially worried when his Irregulars disappeared for certain lengths of time. Sometimes, after all, they were caught.

Occasionally this was by do-gooders who wanted nothing more than for the kids to be at school and being fed three square meals in a relatively non-hostile environment.

Other times, it was the police, as though the Irregulars were more than happy to keep Sherlock informed enough to prevent crimes and catch murderers, on the other hand, drug use, stealing and generally getting up to mischief of the vandalism or joy-riding varieties were common-enough pursuits that Sherlock did not even bother to discourage them from.

After all, he of all people understood boredom.

So when the boy that Sherlock knew as "Eggsy" disappeared for a few weeks, Sherlock was initially not especially bothered. He heard from one of the others that Eggsy had been "picked up by the coppers fer nickin' Rottweiler's car and takin' it joyridin'," and assumed that the obvious had occurred- that Eggsy was serving some time.

But then one of Eggsy's friends, Jamal, (Sherlock never deleted the Irregular's names because… because it would mean that they would feel slighted and would cease informing him, yes, that was it,) asked Sherlock if he had heard anything about what happened to Eggsy, and wondered if the detective couldn't look into the matter. "Because I heard from his Mum that he somehow got released by the fuzz, and then he went home, his bastard step-father and his gang tried to kill him, and then he scarpered with the help of some toff-sounding bloke and hasn't been seen since." Jamal had swallowed. "Whole story sounds mighty on the nose, if you ask me, 'specially if you believe the rumour that Dean's gang were searching for some posh suit who apparently beat the shit out of them for calling Eggsy a rent-boy."

Sherlock paused. That scenario sounded…

Intriguing.

(And quite possibly, not boding well for Eggsy's health.)

Either way, it was certainly something he felt he should look into.

"Watson!" he shouted when he returned to 221B, "I have a case!"

Watson, (dressed as sloppily as ever in one of those awful cardigans that he always seemed to acquire regardless of however many destructive experiments that Sherlock conducted on them in the name of taste science,) looked up from his newspaper, an excited glint already coming into his eyes.

(It was times like this that Sherlock was reminded why it was that he was so fortunate to have his… blogger.)

Eight days later, and Sherlock was almost (almost, not quite, things had not quite reached that dire point) ready to call Mycroft in sheer frustration.

"Still haven't found your chav?" Sally Donovan asked them, unable to hide the slight sneer in her voice when she came to (grudgingly as ever) demand their help on the latest murder.

Sherlock sneered right back. "Gary "Eggsy" Unwin, 23 years old. Quit what was looking to be a promising career in the marines because he was worried (correctly) that his stepfather was beating his mother. Has no job to speak of, in part because he has a somewhat deserved reputation from engaging in petty crime as an adolescent, and in part because has spent most of the last year and a half taking care of his infant half-sister, which is also the reason why he quit taking drugs. Last seen over three weeks ago running for his life from his stepfather's gang, possibly in connection to a man in his early fifties with a probable expensive taste in suits, and a definite excessive taste for violence. Has not been seen nor heard from since. No I haven't found him, the trail is cold, and I am starting to think that the young man who gave me the information that was essential for solving what John described as the Tell-Tale Locket Case may be beyond my abilities to find." He raked a hand through his hair, and stormed away, coat flapping dramatically.

(Behind him, he could hear John chastising Sally. The words "insensitive" and "classist" came up, before Sherlock rounded a corner and could no longer hear the quiet but forceful – typical John Watson – lecture. In revenge, he solved all four of the current homicide cases open, including the one she had given him, in the space of about half an hour, explaining in scathing detail where knowledge he had picked up from the Irregulars was useful. He was unsure if she had got the point -typical thick-headed plodding police officer- but she was looking rather subdued, and John was giving him the look where he smiled with his eyes, and so Sherlock considered that he had come out ahead.)

Nine days later, and Sherlock's search for Eggsy was rudely interrupted by extremely well-trained thugs who proceeded to kidnap both him and Watson.


	2. Chapter 2

Part 2:

The thugs had tied the two of them to wooden chairs, side by side, and seemed content to make small talk after that. Sherlock of course could have escaped his bonds in a few minutes, but he thought it rather more important at this juncture to find out what, (as John was fond of saying,) the hell was going on. He conveyed this to John by looking him in the eye, and John, in one of his usual odd moments of high perceptiveness, nodded subtly in response.

They would await further information before making their move.

After a tedious hour spent waiting for the wealthy megalomaniac who had orchestrated their kidnapping (obvious- the thugs had the best equipment available on the market, were extremely well-trained, and only a megalomaniac would feel the need to gather a private army and then use them to snatch Sherlock and John off the street, and then offer them very expensive whiskey once they had been settled in the basement of the expensive townhouse) Sherlock was unimpressed by the lisping American with the poor taste in food (McDonalds barely counted as sustenance,) who walked in.

His assistant bodyguard, the French-Algerian woman with the intriguing prostheses (so that was what that sound had been, and Sherlock had only had a few seconds to glance at them, but he was almost certain that she could -and had- used them to kill) who followed immediately after was a little more interesting, and by extension made her employer mildly more interesting, but really, Sherlock was annoyed about being treated like a sack of potatoes, and he had sensed the building of John's irritation over the last few hours (John's irritation was his to cause,) and really, he just wanted this imbecile to get to the point so he could start working on an escape plan before Mycroft stuck his fat nose in.

"…Richmond Valentine?" John sounded incredulous.

Sherlock frowned internally, now why did that name sound familiar…? Oh.

"Richmond Valentine as in the creator of the MFV encryption software?" Sherlock asked.

John made the slight choking sounds he sometimes made when he thought Sherlock was being incredibly dense about something that would no doubt prove to be exceptionally boring. "Richmond Valentine as in the CEO of the Valentine Corporation, one of the biggest computer tech companies in the world," John corrected reminded him.

Ah. Well considering the fact that this Richmond Valentine had seen fit to use a percentage of his billions of dollars to kidnap the two of them (and no doubt more people) this was not the irrelevant fact Sherlock might have previously considered it to be.

(Sometimes, sometimes, John had a point about pop culture. It was fortunate that Sherlock had him around to act as the auxiliary brain to remember all the dross that very occasionally came in useful for Cases, because otherwise the sheer unrelenting mundanity of it would have crushed his intellect.)

Sherlock turned his attention to Valentine, who was watching him with no little fascination. "I'd be offended that you'd never heard of me, but you've apparently heard of one of my favourite creations, and that's kinda…"

"Weird?" the body guard drawled, amusement tucked into the corners of her subtly lipsticked mouth.

"Nah," Valentine shook his head, "I was gonna say refreshing." He grinned. "I was always really proud of that one."

"It is the best product on the mainstream market, although a few years ago I did find one programme by an enterprising young hacker going by the moniker W1zardr1 that might be better," Sherlock mused, ignoring the way John subtly kicked his ankle.

Sherlock was interested to see that Valentine was unruffled by this assertion. It wasn't often that he met a genius megalomaniac that did not mind being outperformed.

"I know," Valentine said, grinning wider. "I tracked her down and hired her, and now she's working for me." And making me quite a bit of money, Valentine didn't say, but Sherlock was nothing if not adept at reading between the lines. So Valentine was a pragmatist, who would rather add an asset to his collective than destroy them. An interesting trait in a megalomaniac.

"As fascinating as this all is," John stated dryly, "is there a particular reason why you felt the need to kidnap us?"

The bodyguard stepped closer, her prostheses making a sound akin to knives sharpening (not a coincidence, Sherlock realised, and oh, what a fascinating design for a murder weapon). "You failed to return my assistant's phonecalls when she tried to set up a meeting."

John looked at Sherlock, and Sherlock ignored the faintly accusatory expression. He had been able to tell that said assistant had been lying about the purpose of the meeting, and had at the time not been interested enough to care about why. It wasn't the first time that a frustrated prospective client had resorted to drastic means to catch his attention, but he had to admit, there were only a handful of people who had ever tried kidnapping. (Mycroft, Moriarty, that Duke and Duchess who had wanted him for less interesting organs than his brain…)

"Well, you have my undivided attention," Sherlock lied smoothly. (No one ever had his undivided attention. Well not his completely undivided attention. It wasn't like Sherlock could ignore data, and there was always data.)

Valentine's grin widened to display a tooth with a gold filling (how gaudy), and he proceeded to explain Gaia theory to his captive audience.

He spoke passionately, in the manner of a man who has stood on many podiums giving rousing speeches to great applause.

He spoke of how the Earth was going to kill them all, because humans were like a virus, and how he had a plan to save humanity from extinction, and how people like Sherlock (and John, Valentine supposed, since they seemed to come as a package deal) were going to be integral in creating the new world order.

Afterwards, there was a brief pause.

Sherlock considered the many and myriad responses that he had available to him. How should he best phrase this?

"What a complete and utter crock of shit," John stated bluntly. "You are completely off your rocker."

Not the words that Sherlock would have chosen, but they made up for their crassness with their succinctness. (It did unfortunately mean that the bluffing option was off the table, but he would be damned if he let Watson die alone. Never. Not if he had anything to say about it. Ah well, better out with a bang than a whimper.)

"Whilst in utilitarian terms your logic is impeccable, I'm afraid that in every other respect I agree with Doctor Watson's assertion," Sherlock confirmed, watching as the expressions around them darkened.

The bodyguard rolled her eyes. "I suppose we shouldn't be surprised that someone who values the law and catches murderers would be disinclined towards becoming an accessory to mass murder," she commented dryly.

It really should have offended Sherlock that that comment just made John burst out laughing.

(Maybe if it was his moral compass that drove him to solve crimes it might have.

On the other hand, Valentine seemed to think he was doing something moral, so it just went to show, good intentions really did pave the road to hell.)

Instead, he just joined John in his mirth and snickered derisively. Honestly, where had they got their information?

"So you won't cooperate?" Valentine asked him, sounding crestfallen. "Well that sure is a shame. You would have come in handy for figuring out where that guy was from."

The bodyguard placed a comforting hand on Valentine's shoulder. "We could always threaten the good doctor's life," she suggested.

The laughter cut out.

"I would rather die than be used to force Sherlock to go along with your farce," John snarled.

"And when he inevitably forced you to kill him," Sherlock added, glaring, "I would become your unshakeable, unsleeping, unceasing nemesis."

"Aw," Valentine visibly drooped. "That's no fun." He turned to his bodyguard. "And I thought we agreed no blackmail. I only want volunteers for the programme, Gazzy, you know that. And no unnecessary killing. You know how much I hate the sight of blood."

'Gazzy' shrugged, unperturbed albeit mildly exasperated. "You're the boss. Alright boys," she said, addressing the assembled thugs. "You know what to do."

Before Sherlock could escape his bonds, he was injected with a sedative. Dimly, he heard John swearing, and assumed that the same thing was happening to him.

…

…

When Sherlock regained consciousness, it was in a small, white-walled cell. He quickly ascertained that he was almost certainly located deep underground, there was no way for him to view the keypad for the electronic lock keeping the door closed, and his best chance of managing his own escape would require at least one particularly incompetent guard.

He was forced to come to the unpleasant conclusion that his and John's (assuming that they hadn't just… no. They might not understand why John was so so important, but Valentine had said… no, Sherlock needed to focus on things he knew and could prove, not things that were only, at this point horrible possibilities) escape was most likely going to be dependent on how long it took Mycroft's minions to find them.

Sherlock considered his soonest estimate of that eventuality (a few days), and contemplated the fact that he was trapped in a cell which offered very little in regards to stimuli to keep him distracted from being concerned about John's welfare or what was potentially happening outside in the world whilst Valentine ran free to cause havoc, mayhem and devastation.

And he was helpless to act in any way that might stop the madman.

Ah, Sherlock realised despondently.

So this was hell.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3:

When John Watson woke up in the cell, he was immediately worried.

Very little of that worry was focussed on himself and his predicament.

Of course, his circumstances weren't exactly what he would call good.

He was locked in a cell, with an aching head, and no idea where Sherlock was, or what condition he was in.

It seemed likely however, that Sherlock was trapped in a cell identical to this one.

Featureless.

Dull.

Boring.

And John knew better than anyone just how well Sherlock reacted to boredom.

Sometimes, John knew, exotic birds that were kept in too-small cages without enough stimulation turned to self-harming behaviours, tearing out their own feathers, biting anyone who came near, and destroying everything in their reach.

It did not take one of Sherlock's intellect to understand that locking Sherlock in a small room with next to no stimulation could have disastrous effects.

He rolled off the (surprisingly comfortable) bed, and quickly observed that he was in a white-walled cell. In one corner there was a toilet and sink, and under the bed, there was a bookshelf, which contained what looked to be three paperback novels with titles John was sure he had seen in a discount rack outside a newsagency, and a thick tome by a Prof. James Arnold entitled The Human Virus.

Somehow, John didn't think that it was a medical text.

The books might keep him entertained for a while. If nothing else, he should possibly read the book by Prof. Arnold just to ensure that he understood what Valentine was basing his crackpot theory on.

Know thine enemy, and all that.

But Sherlock…

Sherlock would not be interested by these details for more than a few moments.

John was Very Worried.

…

Sherlock suspected that John was worried.

The time that Sherlock spent in the cell in Valentine's dungeon was for him, pure torture.

The last time that he had been even half this bored, he had developed a cocaine habit.

But now, he had nothing to do but stare at four walls (he refused to read the books- he had no interest in polluting his mind with such utter drivel), wait for Mycroft, and worry about John.

Constantly.

The worrying about John part was an uncomfortable feeling that twisted his gut into knots and made him want to vomit every morsel he had ever eaten. It was hardly the first time he had been separated from his blogger (after all, there had been that time after The Fall) but Sherlock was used to knowing where John was.

Not knowing John's location felt similar to having left one of his limbs somewhere.

Maybe something more vital, like his lungs or his liver.

The waiting for Mycroft part just infuriated him.

But even so, Sherlock would have been pleased to see his brother's stupid smug face if it meant that he would see John directly after.

Desperate for stimulation, he ended up taking inspiration from a film that John had insisted was essential watching (he had deleted the title from his brain, as he found it irrelevant) and examining what forms of exercise were possible within his cell.

Only three hours passed before he was literally climbing the walls. (Unfortunately there were no handy air vents big enough to fit any organism larger than a guinea pig inside. Damn. Perhaps he should consider the benefits of carrying about a pet rodent, but no, that would be an unsanitary practice, and John would no doubt be displeased if Sherlock neglected to feed the beast because he was distracted by something more interesting.)

By the fifth hour, Sherlock had remembered a small factoid about the development of Pilates. It was originally created by a prisoner of war in an internment camp. Surely, he Sherlock, could invent something at least as good, what with his extensive knowledge of anatomy.

By the ninth hour, he had used the pages of The Human Virus to reconstruct a to-scale model of the Tower of London out of origami shapes that included frogs, aeroplanes and cranes.

At the tenth hour, the slot in the door opened.

Sherlock immediately leapt up, but the jack-booted thug outside (dishonourably discharged from the Australian SAS, owned a pet parrot of some sort that he allowed to sit on his shoulder, single and sexually frustrated…) simply shoved a tray through the slot, and refused to reply to any of Sherlock's questions.

Sherlock set aside most of the food he had been given in a decomposition experiment, partly because he had little desire to eat food handled by his captors, partly because he was bored, and partly because he had a vague thought that if he managed to create a bad enough smell he might tempt his captors into coming in and checking if he had died.

(After all, Sherlock was quite practiced at faking his own death. It would be a shame to never use those skills again, and this time, he had the benefit of probably not upsetting John.)

By the fourth day, Sherlock had staged a perfect suicide scene, with the rotting meat from his meals on the first two days adding a level of authenticity. He made it look as though he had managed to hang himself with his bedsheet carefully looped through the air vent, with his "body" conveniently displayed for easy vision for anyone who happened to look through the slot in the door.

When the guard opened the door to check on him, Sherlock enacted his escape plan.

Twenty minutes later, and he was kneeling with guns pointing at him. Unfortunately, he was unable to outsmart superior numbers with semi-automatic weapons when there was someone attentive watching the surveillance system, he was mostly unarmed (apart from a few improvised shivs that would nonetheless do very little against guns) and an above-average intelligence on the loud-speaker system was barking orders.

Damn, he thought. And he hadn't even managed to find John.

"Very clever Mister Holmes. They did tell me that you were a genius," came a familiar lisping American accent, "which was why I was so very disappointed when you declined my offer." Richmond Valentine rounded the corner, swinging an ostentatious cane like it was a prison-guard's truncheon. (Rather less of a metaphor than Sherlock would have preferred, all things considered.)

"On the other hand, you are the only one to have made such a successful escape attempt, so, I suppose you could, as you Brits say, pat yourself on the back over that one."

Sherlock ignored him in favour of observing what he could of the hired grunts. Almost all of them had served in some sort of military, but some had served for rather longer than others. A good two-thirds of them were clearly "soldier of fortune" types but at least three that Sherlock could see were either minutes fresh out of service, or were on some sort of furlough in between serving their countries.

It was no magic trick, how he knew this- all of them were obviously extremely comfortable with both weapons and orders, and stood in orderly formation, but looking at their boots, some had accepted what he supposed must be "Standard issue", since they were the newest, but most were wearing boots that showed a wide-range of wear and tear in a wider range of styles. The ones still with their hair in regulation military cuts, at least half of them he would have sworn were still serving their countries, were it not for the fact that they were in what seemed to be the secret underground bunker of a megalomaniac… and then Sherlock noticed the matching scars that each and every one of them had beside their ears.

"So," he asked brightly, "what leash did you implant all of your dogs with?"

Valentine, who had been monologuing still, stuttered to a blinking halt.

And then started laughing and clapping appreciatively.

"He really does live up to the hype, doesn't he?" Valentine asked rhetorically to all assembled.

Sherlock was getting rather unwelcome flashbacks to Moriarty.

He had a feeling that John was going to be rather upset.

"So?" he pressed, spreading his open hands dramatically as he knelt on the floor with guns pointed at his head. "Have you microchipped your hounds so that you know where to find them when they get lost? Or, oh…" Sherlock deciphered the microexpressions on the faces in front of him and felt his eyebrows raised, "it's more than that, isn't it. Now what…" and then he realised. "You complete and utter imbeciles," Sherlock breathed. "You let him put kill-switches in your heads, didn't you."

"More like anti-kill switches, am I right brothers?" joked one with a distinct New Zealander accent.

Valentine merely continued laughing, deigning to neither confirm nor deny, but Sherlock saw the look in his eyes, and in the eyes of some of the more senior soldiers present, and knew.

"It's both," he said firmly, getting eye-contact with as many of those in front of him as possible. "And you are all complete and utter fools for trusting your lives to a man willing to treat the world like it is some kind of great game."

Valentine's amusement waned. "Hah. You think you're so clever." He smirked then, as an idea occurred to him. "You Holmes men, thinking you know so much better than the rest of us. Arrogant bastards the both of you."

Sherlock suddenly had a feeling of foreboding.

"Actually…" Valentine abruptly grinned. "The world as we know it is due to end in a few hours. I might as well facilitate a little family reunion. After all," he mock-pouted, "you destroyed the interior of a perfectly nice cell, and it just wouldn't do to put you back in unsanitary accommodations." He grinned. "That would just be uncivilised."

"Please, I would rather you just shoot me now," said Sherlock bluntly. "If it's all the same to you."

Fifteen minutes later, and he was shoved into a new cell, and unfortunately, the guards were smart enough to ensure that there was no way that he could see the combination being keyed into the door. (He thought he could narrow it down to about twelve possibilities though.)

"Hello Sherlock," greeted Mycroft from his seat on the bed, where he appeared to be meditating.

Sherlock corrected his earlier thought upon being thrown into his original cell.

 _This_ was hell.

...

 _A/N: Because apparently this story is about torturing Sherlock, using his three worst psychological pressure points- boredom, Mycroft and worrying about John. Times like this I feel downright evil :P Ah well._


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Sherlock sulkily threw himself into a cosy-looking armchair pushed up against the wall. Naturally, his elder brother had been given nicer accommodations than himself.

On the other hand, it looked as though Mycroft had been in this room significantly longer than he had been taken. By his calculations….

"Ten days?"

"Nine," scowled Mycroft. "And I take from the amount that your whiskers have grown in that you have been here five yourself. John?"

Sherlock scowled, and Mycroft nodded, clearly unsurprised.

Sherlock, although he would never admit it aloud, thought that if they had managed to capture _Mycroft_ then it was small surprise that they had managed to similarly abduct himself and his loyal doctor.

From the unamused glint in Mycroft's eyes, he knew that his elder brother was well aware of this line of thought regardless.

"Your 'assistant'?" Sherlock asked in return, giving the preferred job title the scorn it deserved. As though the woman that Mycroft trusted to run the surveillance on his brother was a mere _assistant_. Though since she refused to reveal her real name, (and Sherlock refused to expend the energy that would be required to find it out when the gauntlet had so obviously been thrown- he was nothing if not contrary,) he supposed it served well enough as a descriptor.

Mycroft's lips thinned as he pressed them together.

Sherlock's brows shot up.

"Really? I would have thought that you could engender _some_ level of quality in your employees."

Mycroft let out a small huff of air. "No doubt she thought that she could infiltrate them. Were it not for the device that Valentine has implanted in the scalps of all who join him, I might be more sanguine as to her chances. I strenuously advised against it, but she insisted that she could do more good from the inside."

Unsaid was the fact that this could quite easily get the woman that John persisted in calling "Anthea" killed. Sherlock grimaced in sympathy. As much as his brother might champion the view that caring was not an advantage that did not mean that he was incapable of doing so, especially in regards to a rare employee who had earned the degree of trust that his assistant did.

"Valentine of course found it all quite amusing that I was being 'betrayed' by my most trusted assistant, and carried on in the crude manner that he so enjoys," Mycroft continued, his tone deceptively apathetic. Sherlock, more acquainted with Mycroft's expressions than the average person, could tell however that his brother was _seething_.

He supposed it was some scant comfort that Valentine had managed to ensnare his brother as well as he- if _Mycroft_ had not seen this coming, plugged into the global political networks as he was, then Sherlock, whose attention was firmly on London, could hardly have done so.

Since Mycroft knew Sherlock better than most, he answered to the unspoken thought. "I suspected that Valentine was up to _something_ with the massive giveaway of those SIM cards, but I allowed myself to be distracted by the increasing numbers of politicians and celebrities who were disappearing worldwide. The sheer audacious _lunacy_ of Valentine's plan caught me off guard," he admitted.

Sherlock grimaced in response. "It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts."

Mycroft, recognising the olive branch for what it was, nodded in response at what another might have thought to be a partial non sequitur, the tiniest ghost of a rueful smile in his eyes.

He opened his mouth to respond, but his words were lost in the sound of semi-automatic gunfire echoing down the corridor.

Sherlock shot to his feet.

"Sit down," Mycroft sighed, "there is little we can do locked in here."

Sherlock ignored his brother and started pacing silently, listening for any sound that might clue him into what was going on out there.

"Always wasting your energy," he heard Mycroft mutter.

Sherlock continued to ignore him.

If something changed, he would be ready.

….

John was in the middle of his 27th sit-up when he heard the gunfire start.

Immediately, he rolled to his feet, and moved so that he was shielded from the most angles by the stone walls. The door certainly _looked_ solid enough, but he had seen the weaponry that Valentine's thugs were packing, and he wasn't about to take chances.

He waited impatiently as the sounds of bullets hitting stone (and what utter numbskull had thought it would be a good idea to shoot semi-automatics in those narrow stone corridors deserved every ricochet that would lodge into their own side) continued, with occasional sporadic gaps. It sounded as though the fight was getting closer.

Suddenly, there was a bang nearby, that sounded suspiciously like a body hitting one of the doors.

"Merlin, I'm fucked," came a muffled voice through the door.

John, crouched in the corner, considered saying something, asking the young man (the voice was a light slightly husky tenor, inner-London working-class "chav" accent, John was no Sherlock, but that much was not hard to gather) who he was and what he was doing, but decided that for now, the smartest thing he could do was keep his mouth shut and his ears open.

"They're coming at me from both sides, I'm out of options."

(John wondered who he was speaking to, and guessed that it was probably a radio, though how he had managed to get one working so far below ground was beyond John. He would have thought the bunker would kill all signals dead.)

"Rox, I need a favour. Call my Mum, tell her to lock herself away from Dean, and the baby…" his voice cracked a little, "and, tell her I love her."

Judging by the choice of words, things were not going to plan for the man in the corridor. John rather hoped he wasn't about to hear the sound of a possible ally getting gunned down. He wondered about the man's last request, what he meant by telling his mother to lock herself away.

John, having flicked through Prof. Arnold's book, and heard Valentine's recruitment speech, felt cold dread settle into his stomach.

What madness did Valentine have planned?

The distinctive clicks of guns being primed to fire echoed through the corridor.

But then suddenly, the tone of the voice changed, the desperate edge flattened out into a deceptive calm. "Merlin, remember those implants that were of no use to us? Any chance you can turn them on?"

There was a pause, and then suddenly, the hall was filled with the sounds of small explosions, with the distinct sounds of bones cracking and decidedly meaty-sounding impacts hitting against the walls and doors.

"Oh god," John murmured under his breath.

If that was what he thought it had been…

"Merlin, you're a fucking genius!" the voice enthused.

John gave an involuntary shudder. That was almost the tone that Sherlock got when he said it was Christmas. John had a distinct feeling that this time, the body count was significantly higher.

Suddenly, there was a loud banging noise, accompanied by a strident female voice with a Scandinavian accent.

"What the _fuck is happening out there!?_ "

A very good question, John thought. One that he was not sure he really wanted to know the answer to.

There was a light clang, and John guessed that the man must have opened the vent in the door being banged on.

"…Aren't you that princess that went missing?" the man asked, sounding as though he already knew the answer.

"You can get me out?" the princess… wait, Scandinavian Princess, missing, John had seen this one on the news- Princess, Hilde, no Tilde? Could it be?

"Well if I do, will you give me a kiss?" the man asked. "I've always wanted to kiss a princess."

John resisted the urge to facepalm, and revised his estimate of the kid's age down a few years.

"If you get me out now, I'll give you more than just a kiss," Princess Tilde said.

John wondered if she really meant that, or if she was just that desperate to get out. Then again, he had heard the news about the princess going missing some time before he and Sherlock had been captured, so chances were, the long confinement was getting to her.

He could sympathise.

There was a brief pause, but then whoever was on the other end of the radio must have said something. "Sorry love, got to save the world."

Save the world? Oh hell. So Valentine was really going through with his insane plan. John silently wished him luck.

"If you save the world, I'll let you do me in the asshole," Princess Tilde responded, apparently unphased by what had to be the sight of fragmented body parts splattered around half of the corridor.

John blinked. Alright then.

"I'll be right back," the kid said in a tone of obvious forced calm, before running off down the corridor.

"Good luck!" came the cheery reply from the princess.

John slumped down the wall, until he was sitting.

Bloody fucking _hell_.

Well, on the upside, there was someone at least somewhat effectively working against Valentine.

On the downside, he was locked in a cell with a corridor of dead bodies outside, with a princess who was apparently doing her best Bond Girl impersonation as a neighbour.

John supposed that things could be worse.

He walked over to his bed, and picked up the trashy novel he had been reading.

Might as well finish his book whilst he was waiting.

…

When John was eventually let out of his cell by a kid in somehow surprisingly geeky glasses and a somewhat rumpled and blood-spattered suit, he couldn't help but roll his eyes.

"Seriously lad, you couldn't have waited to take her somewhere nicer than the cell she'd been stuck in for weeks with a corridor full of neighbours?" he grumbled as he pushed past the boy. "The walls might be thick, but these doors aren't exactly soundproof, if you catch my drift."

The shade of scarlet that the kid went was gratifying.

"D-Doctor Watson!?"

John frowned, looked the kid up and down, and then suddenly realised that he had seen the kid before. Admittedly, he had changed his look rather significantly, but…

"Wait." John couldn't believe it. "You're one of Sherlock's Irregulars, you're, you're _Eggsy_!"

Eggsy gave a sheepish grin. "Guilty."

Clearly John was trapped some kind of trashy mystery novel.

Because this was too ridiculous for real life.

 _A/N: It lives!_


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

When Sherlock heard the explosions, he turned to see Mycroft turn dead white.

Sherlock winced internally. He wondered what the likelihood was of Mycroft's assistant being still alive. Judging by the expression on his brother's face, he suspected that the odds were not good for her, nor for however many heads of state, academics, celebrities, and other leaders who had agreed to go along with Valentine's plan.

Not for the first time, Sherlock was glad that he had decided to avoid getting involved in politics like Mycroft. The world was going to be a complete and utter mess if his suspicions were correct. He hoped that Valentine had not managed to enact his plan before someone through a wrench in the works. (Although it was not outside the realms of possibility that Valentine had decided to also take out all the people with implants, it seemed like twisty logic even by the warped genius' standards.)

Sherlock wondered who it was that had managed to disrupt Valentine's scheme. He hated this. He hated not knowing. He hated being locked in this tiny cell, with no data, no information, and worst of all, with no respite from his brother.

And now, of course, Mycroft was proving his own maxim, that caring was not an advantage- Sherlock could read the distress all over his brother's face, despite the fact that most would have just seen a mask fit for poker.

If Sherlock had never met John, then maybe Sherlock might have said something rude then. Something pointed, and scathing, and designed to through his normally poised brother even further off balance. Indeed, by the way that Mycroft had shot a glance at him out the corner of one eye, Sherlock suspected that that was exactly what his brother expected.

Sherlock knew for a fact that he was a bastard, but with John around, he had gotten out of the habit of saying things that just might be considered unforgiveable.

So instead of saying something that would make John clench his fists, and furrow his brows in disappointment, Sherlock instead stayed silent.

Fortunately, it was only a short amount of time before he heard footsteps in the corridor.

"Let us out!" Sherlock snapped.

"Who is there?" came the calm reply, the Scottish accent enunciated in a very slightly husky baritone.

Mycroft's spine straightened. "Merlin. Is that you?"

There was a pause, and then suddenly there were a few quick steps, the beep of the buttons on the electronic lock, and the door opened.

A tall, bald man with thick-framed black glasses that he did not actually need for his eyesight stood before them, wearing what looked to be the uniform of a pilot. Sherlock noted that this man very probably could actually fly planes, but considering the gun calluses on his hands, the fact that Mycroft was able to recognise his voice, the ridiculous alias and the fact that he was standing rather calmly in the corridor despite having trailed bloody footprints from whatever biological wreckage he had had to walk through to get to their cells, and Sherlock knew that dismissing this man as a mere anything would be a deadly mistake. Sherlock also noted the strong, well-maintained physique, a soldier's posture, the pale complexion of a man who spent a lot of time indoors staring at screens, and somewhat singularly, a distinctive signet ring with a design on it that Sherlock was unable to catch a decent glimpse of without being too obvious.

If this 'Merlin' was not some sort of spy, then Sherlock would eat Mycroft's umbrella.

"Ah," Merlin said, looking Mycroft and Sherlock in the eye. "It is very good to see you Mycroft. I was starting to worry. And this must be Sherlock."

Sherlock gave a sharp nod, and stepped past the man, unwilling to spend more than another second in the cell. Once out in the corridor, he turned to face the other two. "I have little interest in whatever manipulations and schemes the two of you are about to start hashing out. If you could kindly point me in the direction of my companion Doctor John Watson, then I would be greatly appreciative," he said, keeping his tone flat. He wanted to know what was going on, but more importantly, he wanted to know what had happened to his blogger.

(He was self-aware enough to know that he had changed since his exposure to John. To his consternation, Mycroft looked almost… pleased. Sherlock made a mental note to poke fun at Mycroft's figure at least twice before they got home. The last thing he needed was for his brother to get the impression that Sherlock wanted his approval.)

Thankfully, Merlin restrained himself from making any comment, and merely directed Sherlock towards the aircraft hangar where apparently a sort of assembly was being formed of people let out of the cells. Sherlock dearly hoped that there wouldn't be any uncontrollable hysterics going on once he got there- the corridors were full of spattered gore and bodies, and some people did not take well to such proofs that human beings were rather fragile in the scheme of things.

Also, the smell was horrific. Sherlock was in the habit of visiting morgues and otherwise working with noxious chemicals, but even he was feeling a little queasy by the time he made it to the milling crowd.

He scanned the faces, and then gritted his teeth. He couldn't see John.

"Sherlock! Sherlock Holmes!"

Sherlock turned to see a woman (professional, expensive haircut, overdue for a colour touch-up, slightly blood-spattered impractical heels, owns a small dog of some kind, married, no affianced to a man who was almost certainly cheating on her, some dance training,) stepping out of the crowd. Ah. Former client.

(Some sort of singer that John had been overawed by. A ludicrous case involving a supposed ghost in a recording studio, but Sherlock had revealed it to actually be a particularly enterprising stalker climbing through the walls and secretly filming her.)

"Have you seen John Watson?" Sherlock demanded, half because he needed to know, and half because he wanted to distract her before she burst into tears.

The singer nodded. "Yes. He was giving a hand to the man in the suit opening the doors of our cells. Oh, I am so fucking glad to get out of there, and to see you both!" She beamed at him, and Sherlock resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the obvious crush she was harbouring.

Damn. Sherlock supposed he would have to wait then.

Fortunately, he did not have to wait long, as moments later, John came walking around the corner, obviously in full Doctor mode, helping a man who was quite clearly in deep shock.

"John!" Sherlock could not help the utterance. It was involuntary.

John looked away from his patient to see Sherlock, and his expression lit up. "Oh good. I was worried that you might have done something stupid."

Sherlock scoffed. "I don't know what you mean."

John's expression was eloquent in its disbelief.

Sherlock attempted only somewhat successfully to hide a grin in response. "It took me four days to break out of my cell, but I was unfortunately recaptured before I could find you." He scowled. "And then Valentine put me in with Mycroft."

John had rolled his eyes at the first part of Sherlock's brief summary, but at that last part, a giggle was startled out of him.

"That bastard," he said, with one of the most pathetic attempts at a straight face that Sherlock had ever seen.

Sherlock ignored John's obvious amusement at his plight, and nodded seriously.

John snorted. "Well come on then. I'm going to need your help to make sure that people are alright. Help me find the ones like this one, or otherwise needing medical attention, and we'll do triage." He turned to the assembled people and began to organise them.

Sherlock nodded. There would be time to discover details of John's experiences and to regale his blogger with how exactly he had managed his escape later. As irritating as it would be to deal with all of these gathered people, Sherlock knew that the sooner they had been manipulated into some semblance of calm and order, the sooner he could convince Mycroft and his suspicious acquaintance to commandeer one of these planes back to London.

(He tried to ignore the possibilities of what his brain suggested they would find. There was no point making assumptions until he had more data. Surely the worst case scenario could not be true. Surely.)

"Oh, by the way," said John, "I've solved the Case of the Missing Irregular."

Sherlock blinked.

That was unexpected.

How? What could a boy like Eggsy Unwin be doing here?

John smiled mirthlessly, and jerked his head back in the direction that he had come from.

Sherlock glanced over to see…

 _Battered and bloodspattered suit, unusually heavy fabric, thick-rimmed glasses, not unlike the glasses that "Merlin" had been wearing, especially in that they did not contain prescription lenses, custom-made shoes, bruised face, bruised knuckles, light cut on his neck from a knife…_

"Eggsy…" Sherlock said slowly. "Your friends were rather concerned for your welfare. With just cause, considering the trade you appear to have taken up."

Eggsy scratched the back of his head a little awkwardly, and then grimaced when he found an unidentifiable lump of biomass.

"Sorry Mister 'Olmes, didn't have much time to leave word. It was a bit of a once in a lifetime opportunity, and then I was neckdeep in spy shit."

Well that confirmed that hypothesis.

"Indeed," was all Sherlock could think to say, as Eggsy turned away to start talking to a number of personages that looked vaguely familiar in the sort of way that people that Sherlock had attempted to delete from his mental inventory tended to.

Approximately seven minutes later (but who was counting?) Mycroft and Merlin appeared, with a few others in tow.

"That the last of them?" Eggsy asked.

Merlin nodded, a sharp jerk of his head that somehow reminded Sherlock of a salute.

Interesting.

Eggsy and Merlin moved out of earshot. Sherlock watched them, until Mycroft stepped neatly into his field of vision.

"What, 37 hours of my company was not enough for you?" Sherlock asked snidely.

"Sherlock," said Mycroft.

Sherlock stopped looking at his brother and started observing.

And felt a chill run down his spine.

"What happened?" he demanded. Whatever the contents of the conversation had been, Mycroft looked as though he had aged a decade over what could not have been more than fifteen minutes of discourse.

Mycroft shook his head. "You will see," he stated in a tone that made the hairs on the of Sherlock's neck raise.

"I will see what? Mycroft," Sherlock snapped, "what will I see?"

Mycroft smiled mirthlessly, and raised his watch. "I'm sorry, brother."


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

"Sherlock! Sherlock, are you alright?"

Sherlock groaned in response to John's familiar worried tones, as his head throbbed. He felt rather as though he had spent the night in merry libations, but that didn't seem right- he had not drunk alcohol since his university days. Alcohol dulled the senses, and damaged his weapon, his mind.

So obviously, he had been drugged, but by who? And for what purpose?

He opened his eyes just a crack, and was startled to see a familiar wall with a smiley face shot into the plaster.

221B Baker Street!

Sherlock swung to a sitting position, opening his eyes fully, and immediately regretting it, as although the light in the living room was generally fairly dim, the window was wide open, and the sun was shining directly in his eyes.

He cast his mind back, but all he could remember was being captured by Valentine, and then being held in a cell. He knew he had managed to escape the cell, that he could remember, but after that, nothing.

Blankness.

He turned away from the horrifying brightness and looked towards John, who was sitting in his habitual armchair, wincing at was what clearly the pain of his own headache.

"Do you know how we came to be here?" Sherlock asked.

John's already present grimace deepened. "I was hoping you would have the answer to that. Last thing I remember was doing sit-ups in Valentine's cell."

The conversation might have continued in that vein, were it not for the knock on the door.

John stepped over to open it, and Mycroft, looking worse than Sherlock had ever seen him, stepped through, accompanied by a woman in a suit with a blackberry who was _not_ the woman that John usually referred to as Anthea.

Odd. Sherlock would not have thought that Mycroft would have tired of that particular assistant yet, and the last he had seen of her she certainly did not seem to be preparing to take any sort of leave of absence.

"Whatever happened to the other one?" Sherlock asked. "I thought you said that she was irreplaceable."

Mycroft's expression, already grim, grew grimmer.

"Needs must," he said shortly, but Sherlock knew Mycroft better than anyone, and he could read every micro-expression on his elder brother's face, and the very slight note of enforced calm in his tone.

Oh. So the assistant was dead then. If Sherlock and Mycroft had been different people, then this might have been the moment that Sherlock offered his condolences, but he found it odd at how _resigned_ Mycroft seemed over the whole affair. Like he had been preparing for his assistant's inevitable demise.

Sherlock had not detected any signs of an impending terminal illness, but then, he supposed it might have been an aneurysm or something. Maybe now he would bother to find the woman's real name so that he could do some hacking and track down her death certificate to see what the cause had been.

There was a strained moment of silence, before Sherlock lost patience.

"Well, what do you want? Spit it out, Mycroft."

Mycroft sighed. "Turn on the television."

John reached over to do so, like the ridiculously agreeable sort he always was.

"What channel?" he asked.

"Any channel," Mycroft said calmly. Blandly. Chillingly.

Sherlock's natural intuition, always strong, warned him that whatever was about to appear on that screen would be _fascinating_.

…

"Buggering shit," John breathed.

"You're starting to repeat yourself," Sherlock said absently as he stared raptly at the images playing on the small screen, analysing every detail, as he had for the last thirteen minutes.

"Holy bloody fucking hellfire," John continued, the white of his sclera visible all the way around his irises.

Normally, Sherlock might have snapped at him, but right now, Sherlock was wondering if he himself didn't need one of those orange shock blankets.

"Mycroft, what the fuck happened?" John asked, finally managing a coherent question.

Sherlock listened, but didn't turn his eyes away from the screen.

"Richmond Valentine happened," Mycroft said heavily. "He engineered what can only be described as a doomsday plot. He kidnapped the two of you because you fit the profile of influential people that he thought might be important to put the world back together after he broke it."

Mycroft continued to speak, and Sherlock realised then, that Mycroft knew something. Mycroft knew something, and he was here, speaking to them, telling them what had happened, because he knew something.

"The gaps in our memories," Sherlock said, interrupting his brother mid-sentence. "You know what caused them."

Mycroft was silent.

It was as good as a yes, and so Sherlock took it as one.

"You're not going to tell us who rescued us. You know who it is, but they don't want us to know," Sherlock guessed.

Mycroft's silence continued, his countenance entirely blank.

Sherlock nodded to himself, and opened his mouth to make further hypotheses, but John spoke first.

"They don't want us to know because they're some kind of shady secret agency."

Mycroft blinked.

Sherlock almost gaped at his brother's slip.

(Mycroft must be even more rattled than Sherlock had initially estimated.)

Mycroft's lips quirked somewhat ruefully. "I always underestimate you, John Watson. Perhaps one day, I will learn not to repeat that mistake." He straightened, and looked both of them in the eye. "Do not attempt to find out who they are. The trail is cold, and any attempt to run them to ground will make James Moriarty look like the sideshow at a children's carnival. I cannot emphasize how little they would care to play games with you Sherlock. At best, you would develop more gaps in your memory. And I would so hate to see them damage that mind."

And with that warning, he left, taking his assistant, who had spent the entire time tapping away at her phone, pretending to ignore them, with him.

Leaving them, standing in the empty flat.

"We should check to see what happened to Mrs Hudson," John said, after a moment of silence.

(Sherlock resisted the urge to cringe. As formidable as he knew Mrs Hudson to be, he had his suspicions about the likelihood of survival of an elderly lady with a bad hip in the midst of four minutes of unrestrained near-universal homicidal violence. From the way that John was clenching his jaw, Sherlock could tell that John too had his reservations regarding their landlady's survival.)

"Yes," was however what he replied, "we certainly should."

…

(Sherlock and John were both pleased and utterly shocked to find Mrs Hudson downstairs making scones in her kitchen. She dropped the dough she was kneading and gave the both of them floury hugs that left white streaks. Neither of her tenants cared. Neither of them asked how she had survived. The haunted look in her eyes told them all they needed to know.)

…

As is the case after all catastrophic disasters, although the world had changed irrevocably, the survivors did what they could to dig through and then clear the wreckage, and life went on.

With the Metropolitan Police struggling to cope with the mess of missing persons, what was being termed as "involuntary homicide" and suicides in the wake of V-Day, there was plenty of work for a consulting detective. The struggle was increased due to the police forces themselves being decimated, although fortunately few officers routinely carried firearms, so the losses were far, fewer than those reported from countries such as the USA.

(Gregson was still missing. Lestrade and Donovan had survived. Anderson had not. Sherlock did not voice his opinions of these facts, because he did not wish to disappoint John, and kicking people when they were down was unsporting, or as John would no doubt describe it, more than a bit beyond the pale.)

Little of the work was overly stimulating, but for once, Sherlock did not need John to tell him that saying so would be more than a bit not good.

John, meanwhile, was desperately needed for his skills as a doctor. As possibly the only medical professional in London to have not have recently violently (albeit involuntarily) killed one of his patients, he was in great demand, if only because as an ex-army doctor and a long-term sufferer of PTSD, Doctor Watson was able to keep his head straight, and to assume command of the clinic he worked at, knowing the right words to get his fellow medical practitioners moving at least somewhat in a productive direction. They clung to John like a life buoy, as his island of studied calmness was an oasis in the sea of trauma.

Sherlock only hid his jealousy because he knew that John would have even less patience with it than usual.

Patience was not a thing Sherlock traditionally spent much time cultivating for the sake of his personal relationships, but just this once, he thought, practicing restraint would pay far greater dividends than any brief moment of catharsis he might feel in venting his spleen about the parasites who stole John's time away.

But slowly, slowly, things began to find a new rhythm. There were more people with visible scars, and none without invisible ones, but even in the wake of the tragedy which had decimated most of the technologically connected world, people found ways to keep moving.

Sherlock was too buried in cases to bother pasting on his reflexive sneer, to hide how deep down, he was rather amazed at the sheer resilience of the human spirit, even as people and infrastructure crumbled.

(The only sort of case he refused to take were ones where the prospective client wanted to know _who_ had killed during V-Day, rather than _what_ had happened to their loved ones. The latter cases sometimes provided much-needed closure, and occasionally even yielded damaged but alive people who had gotten lost in the confusion. The former though had the ugly tendency to be based on needing someone to blame. Sherlock refused to support the vengeance against anyone who had killed on V-Day. Everything he had learned since proved to him that there was no way anyone who had not been forewarned could have stopped themselves. If there had been, then there would have been far fewer suicides in the aftermath.)

"Oh, by the way," said Sherlock, "I've solved the Case of the Missing Irregular."

John blinked. "I just had the weirdest sense of _déjà vu_." He shook himself. "Never mind. How did you find him? Where has he been?"

"Apparently he's working at a tailor's of all things," Sherlock said, shaking his head incredulously. "According to Eggsy, he ran across an old friend of his father's, who offered him a job there. He heard I was looking for him apparently, so he left me a video message in my emails."

(Which Sherlock would not be able to show John, because the email had deleted itself immediately after Sherlock had watched the attachment. Sherlock suspected that John's laptop, never the most secure of devices to begin with, had been hacked. No matter. Sherlock did not need the video to remember every pertinent detail of its contents.)

John nodded. "Well, that's some good news at least. Nice to hear that he survived V-Day."

Sherlock nodded, eyes distant as he considered the fact that Eggsy had been… lying to him was too strong a word for it.

Eggsy, well aware of Sherlock's abilities, had through the camera, looked the detective straight in the eye and fed him a shallow cover story. A shallow cover story that did little to hide the freshly acquired thousand yard stare or other signs of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that his Irregular had somehow managed to pick up since he had started his _apprenticeship_. And then in almost as many words, had told Sherlock to please stop digging.

(If Sherlock knew that Eggsy was lying, and Eggsy knew that Sherlock would know that Eggsy was lying, then did it really count as anything but a lie of omission?)

The same request to leave a mystery alone coming from two entirely disparate people in Sherlock's life was too much of a coincidence to ignore, and Sherlock normally would have chased the information down like a particularly stubborn breed of bloodhound.

But on the one hand, in John's words, somehow this related to the doings of a "shady secret agency" and Sherlock had sworn off those as being Mycroft's problem, long before this particular time that his brother had begged him to leave this particular rock unturned.

For once, Sherlock decided, he was going to both pay heed to his brother's counsel and leave a mystery unsolved.

Because just this once, he knew that he and Mycroft would never speak of it.

"Sherlock?"

Sherlock looked up from his musings to see that John was holding his phone.

"Lestrade?" Sherlock asked.

John nodded. "Apparently someone is trying to hide murders in amongst the recent suicides, and the police only realised because one of the victims managed to get away." John's mouth hardened, but his eyes showed a glint of something that looked rather like respect. "Apparently they didn't expect a thirteen year old legally blind girl to be able to get out of a locked basement on her own, so they didn't bother to tie her up."

Sherlock considered this for a split second, and then snatched his coat from where it hung by the door.

"Come on then Watson. Time to interview an 'unreliable' witness and show the police how _real_ detective work is done."

John grinned tiredly, and followed him out the door.

...

 _A/N: And done (finally)! Thanks for reading, and a special thanks to everyone who left me a review :)_


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